Popping Around

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Mormon Moment - Laugh With Me: Fantasy 4th Ward

I have always found fantasy football to be a little confusing. You pull people from different teams, and then make up a team that you think will be perfect. To see how well you did, you track the individual stats of each player, and then combine them to see who would win. You pay to get to make your guess at the beginning of the season, and then all season see how "your" team would have done.I can see how that would be a fun thought experiment, but actually betting on who wins, and thinking that a team with stand out individuals at all positions would play well together, that doesn't make sense. Each "standout" has an entire team supporting them, making them into the star that they are. Just like none of us built our lives from scratch, no team sports star could be on top, without the rest of the team. And thinking that a lot of people who are used to having a ton of support from their teammates, will be able to translate that into being a supportive teammate, if they weren't the star, doesn't make sense. The one place we see this is real life is at the Olympics, and even with an American team that dominated the London games, there were still a lot of relatively close games. The fantasy Basketball versions of the world teams would have made almost every game have a 30+ point spread.

All of the, "I don't think so" part of Fantasy Football/ Basketball/Soccer aside, it is fun to think about putting together a Dream Team of players, and imagine what might happen. On the other hand, it can be fun to take superstars out of their comfort zone, and see how they do at something that they don't train for everyday. One of my favorite places that this happens weekly is on the "Not My Job" segment on the Public Radio program, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. If you haven't met Wait, Wait yet, and you love smart political humor, you have got to check it out!When I was reading this post on Get Religion, I started thinking about what it would be like to be POTUS, and still have a calling. I can't imagine that he would have a leadership calling, so what would it be? (I am in no way claiming that I could or would suggest a calling in a real ward for Mitt Romney, or anyone else that will be mentioned as this post goes on.) After a few thoughts about Brother Romney and Brother Reid, I then started thinking about other well known Mormons, who are not well known simply for their connections or callings in the church. There are so many callings, that there is no way I could come up with someone for every position on my own, so I am asking you to help me come up with more people, and fill more callings in my "Fantasy Fourth Ward." Oftentimes Mormons receive callings that are outside of their comfort zone, so that they can "grow" and learn new things. All callings should be ironic in some way.I am not sorting the list by callings, and while I don't want to have three bishops, (a ward would never have more than one) I am not going to be overly picky if I have a seminary teacher proposed, and someone else proposes another seminary teacher. Lots of wards would have more than one. (For Mormons who might want to call people to Stake callings, please wait until we get to a Fantasy Stake, and just stick to ward callings at this point. People who have died are okay, as long as they have been alive during your lifetime, and they were not called into a World-wide calling, like Apostle or General Young Women's President.)

Here is my start! Who should be on the list that isn't?

Fantasy Fourth Ward:

Mitt Romney - Nursery Leader (Nursery is for children 18 months to 3 years old)

Most of these names will be familiar to a general Mormon Audience, although some reflect some of my peculiar interests. So, I asked several LDS friends to give me feedback on who they didn't know off the top of their heads. (If some of the others are obscure, please feel free to ask about them in the comments.)

Barbara Young is married to Steve Young, and is a political liberal.

Mark Hofmann forged documents he claimed were from the early days of the church, and committed murder and other crimes while trying to cover up for the forgeries.

James Christensen is a Fantasy and Science Fiction Artist.

Gordon Smith was a Senator from Oregon, and his family owns a large argicultural business in Oregon.

Kevin Rahm is an actor, and I first "when he was on Judging Amy, as Amy's brother.

Shawn Childers is a science fiction writer, and my favorite of his novels involved alien investors who come to take over the world through finance.